Who said that Malawians need AID?

Getting the best return

Mary often asks me who I’m writing for, but I never really know, who reads or who cares, but being just off the plane after 32 hours travel, maybe it’s therapeutic!!.

Six weeks in Malawi was again exciting, enlightening and generally crazy. We had the sudden death of the President, his body sent to South Africa to allow time for an attempted coup, the grand tour in the golden trailer RIP 1, the millions of dollars, allegedly, found in bags in his bedroom and in his gold plated mausoleum, the vice president sworn-in, a palpable sense of relief and hope among our village friends, and the certain possibility of a better future. We’re told,  by our Malawian friends, that Ireland, almost alone, supported him to the bitter end, implying a certain level of stupidity on the part of the Irish Government.

In Malawi, this was the hungry season when most villagers are down to one meal a day, still in the cold, rainy season. The maize has grown if you have fertilizer and the wet, red soil sticks to everything.

We had hardly drawn a breath of the rarefied air, before we were reminded of our commitment to a 200 strong women’s cluster in Doroba. Four of their representatives had trudged 30 km, in the downpour, to our pump factory, in the city to say thanks for the fifty pumps, but what about our preschools? In only one year of self help success, these shy, helpless and hopeless women had become eloquent, forceful and focused. Yippee!! They knew their community needs and our requirements and had a list of five areas where preschools had already begun operations, with carers, the use of a building, a school committee and the chiefs on board. Mary decided that we should meet each community separately and make sure that they all understood that they needed WORKING committees and school gardens for a feeding programme. By the end of six weeks we now have 11 new preschools (17 in all), where all the carers have had one day’s hands-on training, with Mary and her crew, just to get them started. I have’nt mentioned the cratered tracks, the desperate journeys, the nightmares for the bony-assed!, the magical scenery and the dire poverty. All that matters now is that these communities have a common mission, to get their little ones to school and keep them there. In these remote rural areas education is prized.

Meanwhile we opened our second adult education class in another deprived area of Mzuzu. Both will be models in a new push for adult literacy. While working closely with the District Education Manager we will continue to move the process forward in the villages with preschools.

Continuing with education, our volunteers from DIT, continued work on an English language project, for secondary school begun last year, while Mary gave the keynote address, and a workshop, at an In-service day on School Management. Plans are well under way, with the Education Ministry, for a two week training programme, by experienced, Irish teachers, to enable Malawian teachers to deliver training to their peers.

Despite the fuel, forex and sugar shortages, we managed to deliver 160 pumps to our partners in Zambia which will enable them to bring clean drinking to over 70,000 remote villagers. Considering the population of Roscommon is 63,896, I figure this is a bit of an achievement!

Oh, Our beehives are going great and we bought 2 piglets for breeding on the farm.

Land ownership in Malawi is very low especially for women, but in the last ten days we managed to buy 23 acres of land, in trust, for a group of 21 women and three men to enable them to set up a model, commercial, co-operative farm

It has the backing of all nine chiefs in the area, as well as support from the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro forestry, all of whom attended the hand-over meeting, at one day’s notice, under their own steam and without allowances. (maybe a first)

All this was achieved by a unique farmer, Dupu Mshanga, who will facilitate the project.

The Wells for Zoë  funding will be repaid by the end of four years and then passed on to a similar project elsewhere.

They have plans for cows and pigs, (with the help of the Ministry) paprika (for which we have a market) and pidgeon pea, Bananas and bees (we have a market for the honey), sunn hemp and velvet bean, no organic fertilizer or chemical pesticides.

These self help women will achieve all this because they are women, and because they are inspired. They will empower themselves, because they are the only ones who can do that. The final remark by Dupu was that they were never the recipients of Aid, they can do it by themselves and while they appreciate our help, he agreed that, in five years, W4Z would have convinced them that they had done it all by themselves.

John (and Mary Coyne): www.wellsforzoe.org

Wells for Zoe takes water pumps to Mzimba

Wells for Zoe takes water pumps to Mzimba
from The Nation Newspaper, Malawi’s National Daily.
Thursday, 26 May 2011 10:49 Albert Sharra – Correspondent

John Coyne demonstrates how to assemble the pump

December 26 2002 is a day that will never go out of the memories of 32-year-old Mary Msimuko of Msira Village, Traditional Authority Mtwalo in Mzimba. This is the day she buried her husband and two children who succumbed to cholera in two consecutive days, turning her into a childless widow.

According to Msimuko, the three got cholera after drinking contaminated water from a nearby river which is the main source of water for people in the village, who do not have access to tap water and boreholes.

“Doctors told me that the three died of dehydration caused by cholera. The water we were drinking was contaminated by running rainwater because the streams were not protected and when doctors came to taste the foods and water at our house, they found out that the water was contaminated,” she said.

But Msimuko is not the only one who has lost her family members to waterborne diseases. In 2005 and 2006, when the country received heavy rainfall, many people lost their lives to such diseases in the district.

Statistics kept at Mzuzu Central Hospital indicates that about 10 people in Mzimba lose life to waterborne diseases every rainy season due to lack of clean water.

Mzimba is the largest district in Malawi. With a population of over 850 000, only less than 200 boreholes have been constructed since 2000.

According to an environmental officer at Mzimba District Hospital Chimwemwe Jella, the fight against disease outbreaks and sanitation has been poor because most people rely on river or stream water.

But people in the district have every reason to smile with the coming of an Irish organisation called Wells of Zoe which is running a project aimed at supplying communities with clean drinking water in the district and the surrounding areas.

The organisation is installing shallow well pumps in the communities and already, over 4 000 pumps have been planted in Mzimba and part of Nkhata Bay and Karonga since 2006, benefiting over 100 000 people.

Speaking during a media tour, one of the project co-founders Mary Coyne said her organisation came up with the project after noting that most people in the district were drinking unsafe water.

“Water tops in any health issue and we were shocked when we first visited the country in 2005 to see women walking long distances carrying dirty water. As a charitable organisation, we decided to assist by providing water pumps. So, we decided to come up with a simple pump which can be repaired by anyone cheaply and we are happy today that the pump is efficient,” Coyne said.

The simple water pumps are made using two plastic pipes, a nail and a rubber disk cut from the inner tube of an old tyre, but it pumps water from as deep as 18 metres.

The Wells of Zoe is also training the communities on how to repair the pumps.

According to Coyne, the pumps are durable and each has a capacity to support over 500 people in a day.

To ensure that every community has access to these taps, the organisation opened a factory that manufactures the pumps in Mzuzu and community leaders can go and ask for one for their communities free of charge.

They are only asked to provide a place, sand and bricks for the construction.

One of the beneficiaries, Group Village Headman Kadambo, said the project is a relief to his community which had no access to clean water.

“We believe cholera and diarrhoea cases will be eliminated because we now have clean water,” he said.

Director of Water and Sanitation at Water for Life, a non-governmental organisation based in Lilongwe, Masautso Ng’ube, says the simple pump is a relief to Malawi because the boreholes have a shorter lifespan.

“Government has been drilling many boreholes countrywide, but very few are still working. I feel if we can embrace this simple pump, our communities will never go short of clean water,” he said, asking Wells of Zoe to open other factories in the Southern and Central regions.

Primary Education as we experience it.

Little girls wait patiently for a teacher to come. He won't come. Another day wasted. Another life wasted

Even though I see clean water as the first step on the development ladder in Malawi and food for a healthy diet as a close second, education is essential to these two even if I rank it third on my wish list.
I suppose I look back to my own youth in the West of Ireland, where thankfully we had an excellent well within half a kilometre and always enough food and education was central to my parents’ expectations for the family.
I went to school at four when my mother sent me in with a neighbour’s lunch and they kept me! I think they needed the numbers rather than having discovered a child prodigy. Anyway I can remember little besides the lunch for Pat Morris, may he rest peacefully!
The school with the rather exotic name of Fort Augustus, was a present from the British, built in 1895, to a standard plan for the colonies. I even discovered the same school structure in the gold mining town of Ballarat in Australia.
Even though the Brits were in Malawi, there is no such legacy, or more disastrously absent is the teacher’s house. In Fortaugustus, the teacher’s residence was impressive, second only maybe to the old landlord’s house up the road. It made a statement on the importance of the principal teacher and his place in society. It gave him stature, like the priest and the sergeant, even though he didn’t have the uniform like the other two. I suppose the respect or dependence of the people came from the fact that these teachers could read and write and very importantly could sign documents. For decades this respect for teacher and education has stuck with us and in poorer areas today the teacher is valued highly in Irish Society, particularly the primary teacher. Of course nowadays we have social workers and other pseudo medical state employees who figure they know it all, everything about everything, but an observant primary teacher, with their students for more time than their parents even, can be a wealth of knowledge and value to society. For me a good primary teacher can leave the mark of their teeth on four generations. Unfortunately I missed out on this one.
What am I ranting about?
Well I recently met an Irish priest, Paddy Leahy from Tipperary, 50 years in Malawi and I was excited when telling him how a group of students, from DIT had helped a community to complete a three classroom school in two weeks, but he quickly burst my bubble by asking what about teachers houses. Good teachers can teach under a tree, but you can’t attract good teachers to Luvuwu, in the middle of nowhere without giving them a good house.
There are about forty six thousand primary teachers in Malawi and over forty thousand have to live sometimes long distances from their school. To get to school they walk or cycle and most can’t afford a good bicycle on the wages they get. In the fine weather there is some hope if you can avoid rocks craters thorns and whatever as they take all shortcuts available. In the rainy season it’s a whole other matter on dirt roads, floods, wooden bridges made of sticks, arriving late, soaking wet, with sickness and disaster ever present. No wonder most days half the staff is missing, in the hospital, burst tyres, tubes where the patches outnumber the original tube. I know how tough it to cycle to school, but I only did 7km each way, on a good bike, on a good road. Oh, I travelled 10 km each way for one year, as our school was being refurbished, on a sand road. It was tough enough, but nothing like the goat paths here, and I wasn’t a qualified teacher, just in sixth class!
I then thought of Ison, the school principal, in Luvuwu, living in a poorly constructed thatched house, with his wife, children and extra orphans, and knew immediately why he couldn’t command any respect for himself or the message he was offering. He was no better off than the people he was trying to lift and inspire. What good is education if this is what a principal teacher can afford?
To date I have found no teacher with a landmark house, one that makes a statement, one that would inspire any young person to become a teacher. I believe, in the end only a good primary school system with well trained, paid and respected teachers will ever lift this country from its status as a begging dependency
All I have seen is the North, where we are supposed to have the most educated Malawians and it’s awful. Now if I am seeing the best education in the country, God help the rest.
Statistics, God help us, tell us that Primary Education in Malawi is free since 1964, I think, but what does that mean. 100 children sitting on the floor of a poorly constructed classroom, with no books, copies or pencils, learning by rote writing English they don’t understand on a white blackboard. The primary school system is absent, if you use any meaningful yardstick, the secondary school system is expensive or private and very often supported by donor money and Church bodies. Teachers are poorly trained and paid, have no status and the brighter ones find themselves delivering aid for NGO’s who should realise that their work would be much more effective if they left them in their schools. Of course who can blame the teachers for accepting the white jeep, the big money, the expenses, and the status?
The next big issue is that you have teachers, with poor English, preparing students for exams in English. We have recently done some inservice teacher training with six volunteering Irish primary school teachers, working with staff in a remote primary school, and the improvements were amazing with even a little intervention. Regular follow up contact between teachers, here and there, is having great response.
Another issue is that of books. The school above has no books for Standard 8, the year where they do the exam for admission to Secondary school. You can’t buy them, they are not available. They printed millions a few years ago and when they’re gone they are gone!
As the world commemorated the International Day of Literacy last month the teacher in Malawi continues to play second fiddle in almost every sphere of life. The nurse’s wages have been propped up by the world of NGOs because of the AIDS pandemic, the Aid business gobbles up the brightest and training is not great. The Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MDGS) well acknowledges that education is crucial for Malawi to achieve the much desired sustainable socio-economic development, but as usual Malawians talk a lot but application is regularly missing. Loads of Strategy but where do they start? As is regularly found the central people in this, the teachers are of such low status, they are omitted from the script. Loads of bureaucratic bullshit, big words, hotels, meetings, meals, expenses and out of pocket expenses and millions of donor money spent, results in little or no spend on the issue. Donor driven reports in Malawi are ten a penny, a must have for every bureaucrats shelf or more regularly drawer, rarely produce results. They do however employ and overcompensate the consultants of the Aid business, and pretend that all this money is spent on Malawi and Malawians. The National Education Sector Plan (NESP) recognized that inadequate and inferior physical infrastructure, including teachers’ houses, is one of the challenges facing primary education. Malawians love shortening names but in reality this plan like a million others lacks any kind of teeth, and if it does ever happen it will cost 500% of what it should with much of the money going to foreign, highly paid consultants and little will go on teachers houses!!

Mary Coyne, Edited Jan 3 2011

If they make it to Secondary school, we have a fund to pay for them

Mama Gondwe and her handbag!

Location decided

We’ll chance it says William

Clean Water

Tastes good

All sick, we brought them to Hospital

It might be called philanthropy, but who cares. We got involved with Malawi just to make some little difference to peoples lives, by bringing them clean water. We thought it would be easy: it wasn’t. We thought Malawi would appreciate our work: they don’t. We thought people with a lot of money would help: they didn’t. We hoped we could make little difference: we have. Are we enjoying it: Wow!

We found that we can give a remote rural villager clean water for life for one euro!

On February 11 last, I sat beside an old gogo (granny) outside the pump factory in Mzuzu. We communicated with a real Malawi handshake and a few smiles. When I threw in my few words of Tumbuka, she bent over laughing. She was in her Sunday best, weather beaten, looked to be 90, but what really stood out was a fantastic handbag.
She wanted a pump.
William (one of our pump men and much more) was called into action and said to me we have to do something, it’s not far.

We'll chance it says William

All three of us hopped in the jeep only to find that after 17km mostly deciding where the road was, as she was directing us to do the crow flying bit and we had to find the roads or tracks to match, we found ourselves walking, no, running, the last mile, behind this fragile old lady holding her handbag way out in front of her.

She showed us the river where 16 villages were getting their water, with the heavy rains it had become a fast running stream of grey water, the river of death, I now call it.

By the time we got there we had attracted a bit of a following: chiefs with hats and sticks, old men, women and children and one scrawny dog.

Location decided

After a short discussion we agreed a location for a new well, which would be the first one in the area.
I had the video camera with me and suggested to William that he do a little interview, with Mama, but as he went on, the number forty one kept coming up (when speaking Tumbuka they give their numbers in English). I stopped recording and asked William about 41 and with his usual laugh he said that’s why we’re here, forty one people from the villages are in Hospital with cholera, and some have died.

William worked all weekend, organised the bricks, sand and manpower (not always easy, but William is a convincing and vocal six foot three) and we put in the new pump on Monday, amid songs dances and prayers, always prayers.

Clean Water

Tastes good

Not totally convinced that her figures were correct, I visited the Chief Medical Officer, Winston Mwanza, at St John’s Hospital (formerly run by the Medical Missionaries of Mary): a meeting hastily arranged by Harisen (our man in Malawi).
He had a huge welcome, and even though his clinic was full, he brought us to his office, did a bit of tidying, sat down and said you are the pump people. He verified the figures and told us the Hospital was over run with cholera cases, BUT then said I have a great story to help you.

You know we run an outreach clinic in an area called Doroba; In 2007 we had 143 cases of Cholera and 6 people died; in 2008 we had 6 cases and no death. This year we had no case. His information from the clinic is that in late 2007 we installed 3 pumps and more in 2008 and 2009.

Standing in amazement I asked could the pumps have much to do with it and he said EVERYTHING. He continued; if people don’t have a protected source of water, when the heavy rains come, everything is washed into the drinking water sources, the water becomes polluted and Cholera, and Diarrhoea result. He continued;

All sick, we brought them to Hospital

Diarrhoea is a real killer and Malaria of course. Keep building the pumps, that’s a great solution…
As we rushed back, I told him it only costs 1 euro to give each person water. So sad he said as he returned to his overflowing waiting room, considering that talking to us for 10 minutes was worth while.

Are we happy to be making a difference?: we are amazed!
And so is Mama Gondwe and her handbag.

You might ask, where do we get the money?. Well mostly from people with little money, friends and friends we don’t even know. But THEY all know that WE pay all the organisation’s expenses, so 100% of anything they give us ends up in a village in Malawi.

Are they happy with their investment?

They certainly are, mostly disbelieving that so little can do so much!

If you can pay even for one person to have clean water it would be magical: It would cost you a Euro and could you find a better investment. You would’nt get much of a handbag for it

If you want to invest: http://www.wellsforzoe.org/donations.htm
and some amazing Malawian women can get a life

John and Mary Coyne, 31 December 2010

Moving up a gear in 2009

Harisen shows the pump factory to the Irish Ambassador

Projects Year End 2009
Pumps
• Factory: After months of frustration with the District Commissioner for lands, changes of mind, payments for work we had already done and even more bureaucracy than Ireland we finally got planning permission and started foundations on July 30, featuring an amazing team from Blackrock College Outreach 2009, who matched the local experts on the hoe and pick, lost sweat and blood, but bruised and blistered achieved the unimaginable, by digging the foundations in two days. The second group carried and stacked out all the bricks In between they managed to blow bubbles and balloons, have some craic and keep the sunny side out. They Inspired, were Educated and definitely Challenged. What a crew!!
Later they mixed and wheeled and really got this project off the ground and by now, it’s complete and functioning. In fact the building has 3 units and includes the pump factory, a joinery unit for school furniture and beehives. The third is a kind of advance factory which we will eventually rent
The final push came when we found out that the Irish Ambassador to Malawi, Liam MacGabhann was coming to Mzuzu on November 6 and we wanted to show it off. He came; we were ready and he was impressed. The word is that we can now make about10 pumps a week, which can give clean water to 1000 remote villagers. This is an amazing achievement by our all Malawian workforce, without a mechanised implement in sight.
In Mid January we got our electrical supply from Escom, two years after we signed the contract and paid. This only happened when we bought the cable 800 km away in Blantyre, having already paid Escom for it in the original contract. Imagine the only supplier of mains electricity haven’t the money to pay for cable!!

One of 28 pumps close to the Tanzanian border in the North

Pump Installation: Wells are best dug by communities in November when the water table is at its lowest. The community then collect and build the bricks and make the concrete cover and include a metal coupler into which the pump is fixed. We supply the cement and screw in the pump when everything is ready. The preliminaries include visiting the village, getting a committee, doing a little deal which involves a commitment to contribute money, labour, and land to the common community or another community to give them the dignity of ownership. This after all is a hand up and not a hand out. When the pump is in, they owe us (a favour at least), and they know we will come to collect.
When we have installed a pump, we then have a relationship with the community and the surrounding area and progress to look at other needs like seeds, irrigation, training and dams. We invite them to Lusangazi and try little by little to meet more needs. We figure (having talked to village women), that clean locally available water is the first step on the development ladder and it’s only upwards from there on.

Of course will sell pumps to other Agencies and at the moment we have begun to supply pumps to about 5 groups mainly from the UK who have small projects here, who have learned how to install and maintain them. We also have orders from about 9 countries in Africa and South America through a US group called SIFAT who in turn work with and train Baptist Pastors from remote rural communities.

We have a good and developing relationship with DIT ( Dublin Institute of Technology) and with whom we are developing a strategic plan for the future development trips and placements. On the pump side they are working on developing a new version of the pump so that it will soon be made from materials, all of which will be available in Malawi. One student of Mechanical engineering will do his thesis on non glued methods of pipe connection which will be a huge help to us.
I am also looking at a simpler version, needing only the most rudimentary of tools to make. All new technologies discovered will be available, by Public Domain to anyone, worldwide, who wants to use modify and develop them.
At the moment we have identified in excess of 200 locations which have non functioning pumps and wells as a result of poor or un maintainable pumps. We are meeting communities, doing deals, prioritising and working towards solving the problems.

CCAP, (the Presbytarian Church of Central Africa, Livingstonia Synod) is a group that have installed over 8000 pumps over the past 15 years, have recently asked us to machine parts for their pump. Harisen has had a few days training, and he has taught William. Their achievements have been nothing short of miraculous

We have just completed an order of 200 pumps the Australian NGO, Every home for Christ/ Global Concern. In early July, Harisen installed their first two pumps. They had their media people on it, brought the video back to Australia and have raised the funds!! I visited the Karonga area close to the Tanzanian border in early November to deliver twenty pumps and begin training and installation. Part of their consignment will go to Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia. We are still waiting for the first export
They also work in Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia, so we hope to have our first few exports soon.
We are convinced that access to clean water and effective sanitation has a catalytic effect on many aspects of human development, being essential for a healthy population and environmental sustainability

Lusangazi

Lusangazi farm staff from left Charity, Vasco (son Randwell) Mary, Elinis, Binna, Joyce ans Mary Monza

• Model garden: Bought by W4Z in November 2007, it is run by 14 dedicated men and women, with little formal education, sharp intellects, who are learning and developing by the hour, growing plants and doing research.
This is a six acre plot in Lusangazi, about 8km from Mzuzu and 500 metres off the M1. It is essentially a research farm looking at suitable plants worldwide to find out how they grow and at what time of year. All seeds are open pollinated, come from geographically similar regions, are grown without artificial fertilizer or artificial pesticides and are grown by a bio intensive method where plants are close together and the soil is double dug.
The aim is to produce and save seeds which are then given to suitable and trained farmers locally. So far we have set up a simple watering system from a small earthen dam and a series of channels, which enables us to farm year round. Simplicity of design is fundamental which can be copied at no (or very low) cost by anyone who so desires. Where bamboo is available we use it instead of plastic pipe. All workers here are employed by W4Z and get basic pay in excess of similar workers in Government employment All their food is produced here and each day, Josephine, our cook, employed by W4Z makes a variation of meals from the farm.
Seedling production: We also have two greenhouses in Lusangazi where we propagate improved variety fruit trees by budding and grafting. We grow citrus rootstock from lemon seed. Orange, Lime, Lemon are Tangerine are produced by budding. We also produce Avocado, Paw Paw, Mango, Apples, Pears, Guava, Pineapples, and Moringa
Recently we have moved into fish and chicken production and looking forward to rearing new variety hens for eggs.
We use bought in chicken, cow and horse manure, compost everything including anything our neighbours threaten to burn and have begun growing our own manure!! How green is that?
We make and experiment with pesticides from any smelly plant we can find and have had great success with Tephrosia, Tobacco, Sage and Dahlias which we apply with a soap solution.
We have failed to grow good tomatoes, refusing to use all the toxic chemicals available which everyone else uses, but Benidicto is on it and we are very hopeful. We are not trying to kill all our enemies but to achieve a healthy balance. We are now trying to enlist the help of birds by growing hedges to attract them to nest!!

Capuchin Secondary School
We are also supporting the local Capuchin Parish with their new secondary school, We are also funding the secondary education of 6 girls, as educated women will educate whole villages.

Women’s Guild
A local guild of women and young men are being educated in cooking, carpentry and bricklaying in the St John of God, Vocational Centre in Mzuzu, with our help. Mary is also working with this group on the establishment of a centre to provide adult education and pre schooling.
Our feeling is that they have clean water, access to horticultural training, seeds and seedlings, so a bit of education won’t harm them!!

Primary School
We are also working with the primary schools with sports equipment, books and education in horticulture. During the summer the Blackrock Outreach boys, besides having two amazing sports days, painted four classrooms to the delight of everyone in the area. We also replaced their broken pump.

[/caption]Birthing Centre
This is also a project in Lusangazi about 3 km from the model garden and is another project where we are trying to meet community needs.
• As a result of a recent governmental edict, all traditional birth attendants have been banned and women now have to attend distant (maybe 50km) or overflowing Hospitals walking, cycling or by wheelbarrow. Anyway we have completed this building, a health post, where a variety of health activities will take place. I don’t know if Lilian will deliver babies there, but she is the number one woman with the people from the Central Hospital.
The Mzuzu Health Clinic has already begun using the building to deliver its inoculation service (for the first time). The District health surveillance officer is delighted with the development and has began working on mosquito nets, soaking them in anti mosquito chemical. The building has two one bed wards, a toilet/shower area, an office and a waiting room. We now hope to add a borehole for water, a tank, a P.V solar panel for pumping and lighting and a water heating panel. The director will have a mobile phone to ring the clinic and of course a solar charger!! We have also been promised help from a missionary Capuchin nurse from their local mission.
Adding a herb and vegetable garden is a must, where we will try to grow plants, rich in iron and vitamins specifically geared to pregnancy and birthing complications. I know if we can focus on this it will happen soon.

Sonda

This is an area about 8km from Mzuzu City where we have 4 projects

• Lower Field: This is a co operative horticulture project which began at Easter 2007. The chief allocated an area of dambo land (essentially a swamp) where he admitted that nothing had grown “since creation began”. It was a major challenge which involved draining, digging and building a dam. In two weeks the first crops were planted and an irrigation process was put in place. The only cost was a few hoes and the seeds. We used farmyard manure and began a composting process. We use only compost, green manure and natural pesticides. The co operative system works well and badly as the personnel move in and out. The current issue is that our leader believes he is bewitched (swollen glands, swollen and closed eyes, difficulty walking and attending an African doctor) because he got a donation of a cow. It has seriously affected progress but may be the subject of future stories. This is the real Malawi and so close to us.
The real success of this development is the copycat effect. Others have copied the system with varying degrees of success, and now most people get at least two crops per year.
All that’s involved is a simple earthen dam with simple earthen channels, no cost technology, which everyone can copy. We love people to steal our ideas!

• Upper Field
We bought this last year. In one part we are planting Jatropha trees from whose seeds one can extract a type of diesel fuel. The rest we will use for fish ponds and agricultural education in association with Sonda Youth.

• Sonda Youth
This is a local youth project with an amazing building built by a group of Dutch Dentists, ostensibly to give vocational training to orphans. In the absence of orphans, they now take all comers of all ages (It seems). The Dutch handed the place over to St Johns Hospital and recently large funds have been misplaced and the staff in Sonda Youth have only been paid twice in the past nine months. At present 3 senior staff in St Johns Hospital, including administrator, and financial controller are in court facing charges of misplacing 69 million. Far from the ideals of the Medical Missionaries of Mary, who founded the place?
In order to help we have given the horticulture people access to the upper field but will now have to add serious training to the seeds already supplied.
Just another example of meeting needs.
• Sonda Primary School
Last year we looked at the plight of 1258 pupils with 8 classrooms and felt that even simple division didn’t work here. Electric Aid emailed following an interview we had with Pat Kenny and they were willing to fund 4 new classrooms and restore the existing ones. The deal was that we would supply the cement and roof materials and the local community would supply all the labour. With nine chiefs it was difficult, blood from a stone likeness!!. We are nearly there, with the Blackrock Outreach 2009 Crew coming to our rescue with the painting, where last year’s crew helped with the construction. Sticking to your principles is tough, but it’s the only way to go as we don’t do handouts. We just waited for the local community to move and eventually it happened.
Newly plastered, painted and decorated rooms should give a great boost to the staff on their return from holidays. The new school principal should also be encouraged.

Salisbury Line Orphan Day-care CentreIn August 2008 we were approached by a women’s group who introduced themselves as a group with an orphan care centre looking for help.
We investigated them and agreed to help. What we found was a wooden building without a roof and a group of maybe 100 starved looking little ones, singing welcome visitors we love you (which should have been enough to set alarm bells ringing but all we saw was the little ones, with their swollen bellies and rags).
In November 2008 we bought a plot adjacent to their building and also the land they were supposed to own! We built a two classroom building which was opened in Feb 9, 2009 and called it Aras Kate.
We returned in March to find maybe 300 children, teachers with no training and no pay, trying to cope, and Mary set about putting some shape on it!!
The situation was probably typical of a type of people calling themselves groups or organisations. They have some backgrounds in minor beau racy, set up around say orphan care or orphanages, find donors, pay themselves large administration fees, deliver little of what they promise, and when the donor money is gone move on to another source of funding. Most is about money and little is about delivery of service. This is not a once off occurence, it’s part of the scenery in Malawi and I’m sure elsewhere, where poor control and accountability wastes millions and delivers little.
In March with the help of our friends and analysts from the DIT student group, Mary set about employing and training eight staff (a three week course), most without formal education. I can now confidently report that this place is amazing and would rival anything of its kind anywhere. We have a great team and a hoard of well fed happy little ones.
Nine staff, 250 little ones, all happy, all fed and looking well despite the deprivation of the area.
The care centre operates 7.30am to 11.30am, but now it is developing a life of its own after midday.
The latest news is that an agreed management structure has been put in place with two nominees from W4Z, two from Mbaweme, the chief, one teacher nominee and two parents, male and female. The chair will be Charity Amin who will also be school principal. Charity was the driving force of the resolution to our difficulties. (Drs Paddy and Gary will attest to her communication skills)
Mary invited parents to a meeting, more than 120 came. They discussed the needs of the area, brought home wool and needles, asked for primary school classes (for themselves) beginning at the lowest level. As a first activity they agreed to start with netball twice a week, a stroke of genius and a resounding success. Imagine arriving at 7 am on the day of a proposed session to find four ladies of the night, marking the pitch eight hours early!
Drs Paddy and Gary, from the second Blackrock group, gave a talk on health and dental care to a packed and enthusiastic house another evening.
Mary has set up a knitting club for the teen girls.
As they say watch this space.

The Future of Áras Kate.
As I was concluding with watch this space, news has just arrived from Mzuzu. The City Assembly have taken our proposal on board and allocated an adjoining piece of land to us. If it was simple then all would be well, but unfortunately much work and wrangling has to be done now. A squatter has, illegally, assumed ownership of this land and we will have to negotiate a payment, for no other reason than we have to. At least the City Assembly will initiate the process and they say they will make the final decision in the event of a stalemate!! Harisen and Charity are on it, so all will be well.
The decision to give us more land was as a result of the production of a Memorandum of Understanding for the future of the project in Salisbury line, which outlined the history, future plans and concerns we have;

It is our intention to fund the activities of Áras Kate into the future by paying teachers/carers, providing porridge, continuing supervision, assessment and in-service by Mary Coyne of Wells for Zoe and supporting the continuation and enhancement of the school programmes.

Fundamental to the ongoing progress of the school is the involvement of the local community:
• Initially by overseeing the formation of a school management committee with representation from City Assembly and DEM office.
• We then envisage an increasing role for parents by inviting them to assist in activities as volunteers, at first.
• Setting up a Parent/Teacher Association to give opportunities to parents/carers to voice their needs and concerns and to enlist their support in the day to day running of the school.
• Realising that many parents have had a poor start with their own formal education, we feel that the promotion and implementation of Adult Education is vital, to enable parents to play their full role. Towards this end Charity Amin and two other local nominees will attend Adult Education training, paid for by Wells for Zoe and provided by Mrs Misika of the Community Development office, in Áras Kate in early January 2009. (It will never be our intention to pay any kind of expenses or allowances for such training)
• Liaise with three feeder Primary schools: Katoto, Michangatua and Chibavi.
• Check on progress and attendance of children transferring from Mbawemi/Áras Kate. Follow up with parents as may be necessary.
• Extend the school building add extra toilet blocks, a larger efficient septic tank, build a kitchen and extend the play area. For this we will require additional lands adjoining the present school site. (For which we have already made a proposal to the City Assembly).

Our Concerns
Wells for Zoe sees sustainable development as a dynamic process that can not be forced but more-so supported through interactive respectful partnerships
Running a facility like we envisage in Salisbury Line is a big undertaking for any community in any country and needs the help of many people and agencies. Over the coming years it is envisaged that through the School Management Committee and the Parents Association, Mbawemi/Áras Kate Preschool will become an established community based programme, reaching out to the community and managed and sustained by the community and an excellent team of trained teachers and carers. It must be a community based programme, but there are so few people with the background or skill to call on, at the moment, that it probably needs hands-on support for the next ten years from Wells for Zoe, gradually handing over to the community little by little. The director, teachers and carers have made such strides in less than a year to make this a place that anyone would be proud of, anywhere in the world. That gives us great hope.
Conversely, the Mbawemi Women’s Project have delivered on none of their promises and agreements and to date have failed to contribute in any meaningful way to the management or day to day involvement in the place. We have no issues about working with them, they did after all make the start, but we would like to know how and when they might be able to make a contribution. In light of recent developments, in Malawi, regarding misappropriation of donor funding of orphan care developments, it is important that all involved in the management of Mbawemi/Áras Kate Pre School would realise the importance of transparency and honesty. Wells for Zoe will fund the project, in total, for the next five years by including it in their five year plan. Any extra funding that might become available for this programme, through the Mbawemi Women’s Project must be passed on to the School Management Committee for further development of the programme at Salisbury Line. Wells for Zoe will not tolerate any misappropriation of funds.

Cost
Feeding and looking after the little ones in Áras Kate is a real joy and even though it is not the main focus of our work, it probably is one of the most rewarding despite all the hassles and difficulties.
At the moment we feed about 260 each day, (well the pot is full and some days the grannies and others do better) which includes little ones, teachers, volunteers and anyone else who comes to us hungry.
The meal is a porridge made from Maize, Soya, Groundnuts, Sugar, Salt and Honey.
We are hoping to add a vitamin supplement of dried Moringa leaves soon.
The cost of this is in the region of 168 Euros per month, which equates to about 3 cents per day. Anyone who compares how the children look now compared to last January will be amazed at the improvement.
Our other cost is for the wages of teachers, carers, and a cook; ten people in total is about, 230 Euros per month.
We would love if some group of people, staff, club or other could take on this task for us for a day, a week, or a month.
At the moment, a school in the UK, Wootton Bassett School, has paid for the food for seven months; One year group took on funding this and 15 wells. Don’t know them, never saw them: what a wonderful effort
Is there anyone out there to continue?

Luvuwu Full primary School
This is a real success story involving the awakening of a community to its own potential.
Further: What a difference a year makes
The impact of last year’s group has had a lasting and impressive impact on the remote, rural community in Luvuwu. The original project involved the whole community in the construction of a three classroom primary school in two weeks: no outside experts, no big fuss, no one got paid, just a real helping hand, of equals on a mission, where the students paid for the cement and the roof.
In the past year, this, now fired up and confident community have built a road and a bridge, shortening the distance to Mzuzu by four miles, got the Ministry to build a dam and have got the status of a full primary school. They have also worked hard on our local aids support group and food production.
Just recently they have built a new house for their excellent teacher Mr Williams and put a new metal roof on the Principal’s house.
They now have presses full of school books, mainly from Clontarf girls primary school, blackboards, maps and later in the year their first students will go to secondary school.
This is what inspiration can achieve; no one laid bricks, plastered or did carpentry; we all did the menial tasks. We carried bricks, sand from the river, and water from the well, as part of a community. There were no handouts just a little constructive funding.
They also carried babies, played games, sang, danced, had fun and enjoyed themselves.
I don’t know if anyone fully recognises the amazing students we have had as volunteers, and it’s up to every new crew to bring their individual talents and skills to the poorest of the poor and I for one have every confidence in them and look forward to being there. Their strength is in being themselves and how they relate to the Malawian people.
One student Liam Stewart, a third year business student, has a the unique achievement of getting permission to do his placement with us, going out on April 7 for six months, working on putting a structure on our business efforts. This was Liam’s third visit in the year and he has made a huge impact.
Summer 2009 has seen the return of a legendary figure in Luvuwu, Elaine Bolger from Blackrock, who has now become one of their own. She arrived back with books and loads of sports equipment, not to mention the two tilly lamps and parafin.
Standard 8 students in preparation for their final primary school exam have decided to stay in the school overnight and the lamps are enabling them to do extra work.
A little spark has lit a huge fuse in this community. They are now looking for micro credit for little businesses, advice on agriculture and irrigation and more simple help.
This development has little to do with money and all to do with restoration of dignity and a small dose of inspiration, education and challenge.
This is a DIT students project and we are very proud of them.

Our business strategy for Malawi.
We constantly mention that solving problems in sub Saharan Africa is not all about money and more money, it’s more about people. Of course anything to do with construction or transport needs money and we are so appreciative of all the support we get and all the effort people put in on behalf of W4Z..
Fundraising is a time consuming and expensive exercise and this is why we have avoided it to date. Our friends have done this for us, none more so than Blackrock College Outreach programme. The money raised has enabled us to do many simple and not too expensive programs, and other more expensive infrastructural efforts without agonising about fundraising.
In anticipation of some funding shortfall, in recessionary times, we have taken the view that by careful planning and business strategies, there is potential for some of our projects to generate funds which can be ploughed back into the general fund for all projects.

Lodge for Volunteers:
At the moment we are in the process of completing a four bedroom house for volunteers in one of the better areas of Mzuzu. We have just applied to build what is called, a boy’s quarters, which will double our bedroom space. Once we are up and running the local commercial lodge has agreed to rent our spare capacity.
We will employ a number of people to operate the place, like, cook, cleaners, watchmen, gardeners and others who we will train and pay. This in itself is beneficial to the area in terms of training and work experiences, but also makes sound commercial sense. If we were just to rent it out, by the month, it would pay for itself in about 5 years, after which time the positive cash flow would contribute to funding our projects.

The Farm
Our main focus on the farm is seed and seedling production, research and horticultural education, which all cost money. The addition of fish and chickens (a natural extension of what we do) will bring in revenue from sales.
We grow strawberries to produce runners and new plants, but the fruit is a lucrative by product.
We also have about 600 banana trees, and so can sell about 60000 bananas each year.

Citrus Trees
We have recently sown-out improved variety citrus seedlings, from which we will get buds and scion wood for future propagation. Here again the fruit is an added bonus, from which we will profit, either by selling or making fruit juice. To this end we have baught about 4 extra acres of land at the roadblock and more adjoining the farm in Lusangazi

In the past four years, Lilongwe had expanded out of all recognition and I would expect Mzuzu to be next, thereby creating a market for much of the produce we can spare.
SO the winners are all the people we will employ or subcontract or help to set up in business and all those we will teach and train: Some winners will be those who will copy what we have learned.
BUT our main focus is on pumps, which are not for profit, and many of which will be almost free (except for a few days labour, some bricks, manure) or whatever will ensure the dignity of ownership to the communities who get them.

General Programmes
Our general and small scale village projects begin with, and centre around, a well and a pump. We are told about a need, we visit the people, assess the need, (looking at the distance to the nearest source of clean water), outline what we require in terms of digging, bricks and labour, ask them about a contribution towards the cost of the pump, like a few days labour on another project, a bag of compost, some manure, some bricks. The gesture is more important than it’s value as we need to bring the dignity of ownership and the resultant respect for the pump. There will always be little indicators in a village as to whether they can afford to contribute or not!!
Having established the pump, we then discuss irrigation, seeds, education, and on a needs basis try to help further. Further association with a village is vital, as we can then monitor the pump and assist with any faults, which are rare, but a pump is a machine and you never know.
Since we started manufacturing the pump in Mzuzu earlier at the end of last year, I think we have installed in excess of 50 pumps, so that’s 50 new villages and maybe 5000 extra villagers to remember!
For a tiny organisation that’s a big responsibility. In most cases we are the only outside help these people get and I’m wondering how it can be done without administrators, which are such a drain on the finances of all societies, particularly those in sub Saharan Africa.

Innovation
People constantly ask, what we will do next and I usually say more of the same; meeting needs, but even to get incremental progress you need to be constantly vigilant.
We recognise that in order to achieve lasting results, it is necessary to establish solid partnerships with as many organisations as possible. We are already working on programs that have the potential to scale up significantly in the region, we are also working some particularly innovative practices which may be replicated elsewhere.
Our work with Every home Global Concern may be the first of these partnerships, where we will initially train their communities in well building, pump installation and pump maintenance, supply them with pumps at cost price, and then look at innovative methods of designing modified pumps to meet their needs by working, on design innovation, with the Engineering Department of the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), and other interested parties.
As always: A work in Progress

Kazando
This are has been a slow starter, from feeding them in 2007, building a dam and fish pond in 2008. (Chris and Aidan with the Blackrock Outreach 2008 group, will remember the black, dirty soggy, hole, forever) The good news is that the community have finally been inspired to build and with our help stock a second fish pond. They have also worked on the dam and added many families to the irrigation project. More children are going to school since we renewed our efforts with the primary school, and finally they have begun a nursery school. Now it looks awful and when we arrived to try and help, we found a dispute between the two voluntary teachers and the 10 strong committee. We have asked the chief (Matthews) to intervene and I’m sure that progress will be made, slowly!!

Our Academic association with DIT We are delighted to be associated with The Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT). The students have been inspirational and are all now part of the W4Z family.
We have now linked with a number of Academic and Research Departments;
The MSC in International Business,
Students learning with Communities,
the School of Computing, as well as Business and Marketing.
Plans are underway to have a number of students on placement, with W4Z, in Ireland and Malawi next year from these departments as well as academic research and an MSc Consultancy.
This is a new and exciting development and something to really look forward to, in the New Year.

Sinead O’Connor and John Waters

Sinead O’Connor to collaborate with John Waters

Just saw this from Hotpress:
Sinéad O’Connor has collaborated with former Hot Press scribe John Waters on a charity song that will be released in March.

Waters’ – who wrote last year’s Irish entry in Eurovision – said he penned it especially with Sinéad in mind. The song is to appear on a compilation album and will be released on World Water Day in March.

Speaking to Hot Press, Waters said: “I’ve done this song with Sinéad. It is pretty amazing, I can tell you. Steve Cooney is producing. It sounds amazing. It’s called ‘Baby, Let Me Buy You A Drink’, and it’s an attempt to catch the idea of Ireland and the Irish being both hound and hare in history, specifically in relation to Africa, and that we owe both friendship and reparation.”

Wells for Zoë- Water for Life CD

Waters’ describes the singers voice as being “an absolute, total intuition for emotion”. He adds: “She can look at a song that has been sung a thousand times by other people and find what it’s really about. With the song I did, she just changed the phrasing – in ways that I hadn’t dreamt of – to make it live in a different way. What other people think in terms of technicality, she thinks in terms of emotions. So what you hear is not someone else singing, but your own heart being sung. She is not trained to be a great singer, she is trained to find the emotion of it – and that’s the key to it.”

Waters acknowledges that eyebrows might be raised by his collaboration with Sinéad, particularly considering their much publicised break-up following the birth of their daughter.

“This is life. Time changes everything. We get on wonderfully these days. We had a very full-on relationship, while it lasted. Nothing that happens is separate from who you are. We were very full-on people and, inevitably, when a feeling turns, it goes radically in the other direction for a while,” he said.

“I have a great time for Sinéad, quite separately from our relationship as parents. I think Sinéad is a genius – a musical genius. So we get on very well now and we have the most amazing child, who fills us with wonder every day. How could you be looking at that – the creation you’ve been involved in – and not be reconciled in some profound way, you know? I have a much better relationship with Sinéad than with pretty much any other ex of mine. I often wonder about people who say they have very good platonic relationships with their exes. I think that’s a terrible contradiction because it suggests that the relationship was not very passionate to begin with, if you can just stop short and say, Oh, let’s be friends. I always say, actually, I have lots of friends, but if one of them dies I’ll let you know!”

(c) 2008 hotpress.com

Going back to my roots

We have just purchased about 15 acres of land from the local chief in Lusangazi. Charity, our new financial controller and HR person found out that the land was for sale, viewed it and did the deal. Final negotiations, for some extensions to the land, to include access to water are under way and when complete will open a whole new research project for us.
We hope it can become a co operative model farm, moving towards an organic, non pesticide, open pollinated seed oasis, in the midst of hybrids and chemicals.
The cost of artifical fertilizer has almost trebled in the past year and even with huge subsidies is beyond the rural, poor, subsistence farmers.
We are proposing to use compost, which everyone talks about and no one does regularly, (maybe because it’s hard work!), combined with green manure plants, which we have begun to research.
The soil is depleted from years of organic neglect, as is most of the soil I come across. Years of burning off the organic matter, sometimes as their culture for finding and catching wild animals, has often turned their soil into useless sand. Sadly, all they find nowadays in their orgy of burning, are mice and small birds, which creates other problems in pest control.
One has to be mad to tackle all these cultural and educational barriers, but I have for some time now, understood that to make any progress in Malawi, madness is an essential requirement.
Buying the land means we can control the process, employ the workers to do things a different way, without the interference or control of chiefs or traditional leaders, who can sometimes hinder progress.
Naturally all the workers will be Malawians, who will be invited to come together as a co operative, with a share in the venture. This will mean housing, water and the provision of a decent standard of living and sufficient food until they can provide their own. Each family will have their own vegetable garden, from which they should have their own vegetables and fruit. One good thing about the location is that the children can go to the local school, which we are already supporting.
The plan is to begin sowing maize, ground nuts, cassava and a selection of trees including fruit trees. We know that pineapples do well and we will try a little coffee. We will do some intercropping with soya and crops for pest control.
This will happen in this rainy season (late November), when we will have to initially use some of the dreaded chemical fertilizer. Towards the end of the harvest we will plant the green manures, which we hope to produce the equivalent of 1kg of farm yard manure per square metre. These will also give us ground cover, keeping the weeds down, retaining water and protecting micro organisms from the sun.
None of this will be simple or without headaches. Changing cultures or mind sets is not easy. We will win some and lose some as usual, but we have to keep trying.
Long term we will provide extra accommodation, as we are doing at the vegetable farm, so that we can invite other developing farmers to come and look at what we are trying and learn from them as well.
We need the help of all good farmers everywhere, who are interested in feeding the hungry and maybe saving the soil for our children.
It will be exciting and frustrating, but for me, no more so than playing golf!
One of the headaches will be pest control without the use of chemical pollutants called pesticides. With a degree in chemistry and having a son who departed the agrichemical division of one of the major chemical companies, when he realized the harmful and poisonous cocktails which he was working on and helping to manufacture, to control pests, I realize that there has to be a better safer way: nature’s way. If you look at my articles on Cuban farming, you will see what can be done
In the vegetable farm we are trying companion planting
In theory, companion planting produces the highest yield per square
metre and the greatest benefits, as long as care is taken to ensure that
the crops do not compete too much with each other
Stem borers (caterpillars of moths) are the major insect pests of cereal crops
in eastern and southern Africa. Losses can reach as high as 80%, while those
due to Striga range from 30 to 100% in most areas.
We will try and grow some maize with two other crops. One attracts stem borers, while the other repels them. Together they effectively protect the maize.
Napier grass is the most effective. It is planted in the border around the maize fields where invading adult moths are attracted to it. Instead of landing on the maize plants, the insects are attracted to what appears to be a tastier meal. Napier grass has a particularly clever way of defending itself against the pest onslaught: once attacked by a borer larva, it secretes a sticky substance that physically traps the pest and effectively limits its damage. And so the natural enemies lurking among the grasses go into action.
The legume Desmodium repels stem borer moths. It is planted in between the rows of maize. Being a low-growing plant, it does not interfere with the crops’ growth and has the further advantage of maintaining soil stability and improving soil fertility through nitrogen fixation. It also serves as a highly nutritious animal feed. Other legumes have this effect as well, but Desmodium also effectively suppresses Striga.
Last year we bought 10 neem tree seedlings from the Land Resource Centre in Lilongwe and they are growing well.
Extracts from the Neem tree, are widely used worldwide. Neem extracts have an effect on nearly 400 species of insects, including major pests (moths, weevils, beetles and leaf miners). They do not kill insects directly, but effectively prevent their reproduction. Neem extracts can be prepared from leaves, but the seeds contain higher concentrations of insecticidal components.
We also use Papaya leaves: 1 kg of fresh leaves, shredded and soaked in
10 litres of water, add 2 teaspoons of petrol and a bit of soap, and leave it
overnight. Sift the concoction through a cloth, and the spray is ready for application
on the leaves of vegetables, to fight against leaf-eating caterpillars, aphids and
true bugs.
Our people will take on this task with relish and love the idea of locally available solutions. They ask me is this research and I always reply; cutting edge. The fact that most are illiterate doesn’t mean they are stupid: far from it.
We will try these and many, other possible solutions to try and achieve a truce with the enemy and as they say, watch this space!